A Day Hike to Grey Glacier
The heights and companions found hiking the Torres del Paine in Chile
Torres del Paine Park! It had been on my mind for ages. If I were going to take a trip to Chile and Argentina, I was going to hike in that park. Luckily in 2006, a good friend of mine from Boston was studying Spanish in Buenos Aires. She already knew that I took long vacations over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays since it was the only time I could take more than a week off from work at a time.
Our trip itinerary for three weeks included Santiago, Puerto Arenas, Torres del Paine, El Calafate, Buenos Aires for New Years, Uruguay, Iguazu Falls and Easter Island.
After gawking over penguins in Puerto Arenas, we took a bus to Torres del Paine and stayed at the Paine Grande Refugio Lodge for two nights in between Grey Glacier and Valle de Frances. We had an early dinner at the lodge and went to our room for bed early. Our room slept six with three sets of bunk beds. Since it was high season, we expected to have some roommates. Sure enough, later that night we heard some rumblings of a few guys settling into our room for the night.
My friend and I awoke early so we could get an early start on our hike to the Grey Glacier. The hike was gorgeous and invigorating. The inclines were slight but the views absolutely majestic. One of the things I will never forget about the park was how pristine the glacial water was that you could just open up your water bottle, find some glacial runoff and refill it without using water cleansing tablets.
On the way back we heard a couple of men speaking on their way out to Grey Glacier and they had the same voices as our roommates last night. We nodded acknowledgement as they passed chuckled to ourselves about their late start.
However, they ended up getting the last laughs on us as they quickly lapped us on the return. They were both over six feet tall and I don’t even reach five foot tall so I chalked it up to their long strides. They politely slowed down to have a chat with us. We found out that they were Australian on holiday and had left one of their friends back at the lodge since he wasn’t feeling well. Not only did we discover that we were roommates, I found out I worked for the same global company as one of the hikers.
After returning to the lodge, we all hung out together for a few drinks celebrating our lovely day of hiking. The guys were doing the entire circuit, and we were only doing day hikes from our lodge so we would part ways the next day.
The lodge that evening became a festive place with visitors from around the world coming together to celebrate the great outdoors and a natural wonder of the world that was the Grey Glacier and the Torres del Paine!
There’s nothing better about travel than spending time in a unique and gorgeous location in the world surrounded by new friends from across the globe.
For more stories in the Gray please consider these offers below.
I enjoyed Erie Astin’s article on her visit to the Eiffel Tower on a gray day.
For some gorgeous photos of Hong Kong, please read Marianne O’s article here.
